'
"--and I think he has too lonely a life," she went on, with a gentle
earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning.
"Do get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can
drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail--- there is so much
pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four."
"Oh, I'll persuade him to come!" I said with confidence--thinking
"it would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!"
The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily
accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would
induce him to call--either with me or without me on the Earl and his
daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to " wear out his welcome,"
he said: they had "seen enough of him for one while": and, when at last
the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and
uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go
separately to the house--my intention being to arrive some time after
him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting.
With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to
the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): "and if I could only manage
to lose my way a bit," I thought to myself, "that would suit me capitally!"
In this I succeeded better, and sooner, than I had ventured to hope for.
The path through the wood had been made familiar to me, by many a
solitary stroll, in my former visit to Elveston; and how I could have
so suddenly and so entirely lost it--even though I was so engrossed in
thinking of Arthur and his lady-love that I heeded little else--was a
mystery to me.
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